This thesis analyzes Alasdair MacIntyre's defense of virtue ethics and attempts to apply it to contemporary political debate, especially the currently contentious debate around identity politics. In MacIntyre's landmark book, After Virtue, virtue ethics – in particular its Aristotelian eudaimonist version – serves as a critique of modernity at large, but specifically of modern moral philosophy. The central claim is that the Enlightenment moral project has failed to produce universal standards of morality based on reason, leading instead to the contemporary state of affairs, where morality is thought to be wholly subjective. Tracing MacIntyre's argument, this thesis breaks down the key conceptual differences between virtue ethics and modern moral philosophy, namely a different understanding of human rationality and a different attitude towards teleological reasoning. Additionally, it explores how virtue ethics also serves as a critique of modern politics, especially liberalism, by emphasizing social particularity as crucial to individual identity and the notion of shared communal ends as crucial for maintaining a rational public debate. By looking at another publically prominent attempt at a similar critique, namely Jordan Peterson and the Intellectual Dark Web, the thesis hopes to determine what virtue ethics could contribute to current political discourse.
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